Minimum Requirement
by Lucillia
Summary: A pair of shinobi come up with a rather novel way of shirking Naruto watching duty.
1. Chapter 1

"Good boy!" a ninja exclaimed happily as he shuffled a flashcard to the middle of the small deck he was holding.

"Now, what's this?" the man asked a high pitched sing-song tone as he displayed another card.

"Why are you teaching and encouraging _IT?_" the man's partner who'd gone out to get lunch and come back to find his partner actually interacting with their charge rather than watching it asked.

The man guiltily slid the cards back into the kunai pouch where they had previously been concealed. After a moment's thought, he studied his partner in a considering manner and then worked up his nerve for something.

"We've got the seven to two shift for the foreseeable future right?" the man said carefully.

"Yes." his partner replied, not getting what his partner was getting at.

"What if I told you that with a little time investment we can get out of it without disappointing the Hokage by requesting a transfer, or worse, being pulled off it?" the man said as he tossed the other man a book "I found this yesterday, read the requirements."

"Seriously?! That's all?!" the second man exclaimed as he flipped to the page his partner had suggested he read.

"Yep." the first man replied.

"Gimme those cards!" the second man yelled.

The first ninja chucked the flashcards over to the second ninja and went to see what his partner had brought back for lunch. Odds were that it was ramen again since the man was obsessed with the stuff, but a man could dream...

"What's this?" the second man asked the third person in the room after he'd gotten the cards organized.

* * *

"And I suppose that the Dead Last wants a bottle?" the Instructor for the First Year Academy students said mockingly to his small blond haired, blue eyed student who had three whisker marks on each cheek.

The shy Hyuuga who'd watched Naruto try and try despite the fact that most in his situation would've long since given up and admired him for it finally snapped.

"Leave him alone, he's just a baby!" Hyuuga Ko snapped before going forward to the front of the class to comfort the sobbing blond haired and blue eyed eighteen month-old toddler who was being picked on because he'd failed the first test of the year since he hadn't even understood what it was.

* * *

The Hokage had an almost savage grin on his face that was practically a snarl as he signed the order that placed two of Uzumaki Naruto's former watchers and the moron from the Academy who'd registered the boy as a student on permanent latrine duty. Up until those two bozos and the moron who let them go through with it, the Academy hadn't needed a minimum age of enrollment because parents had been smart enough to not enroll their children the instant they met the minimum requirements for admission which was that the person registering was capable of standing and reading and writing their own name, and waited until their children were at least four and therefore able to understand what was going on on some level and communicate semi-effectively.


	2. Chapter 2

The Hokage groaned when he caught sight of who had entered his office. Some days, they were friends, and others...

"I see that you haven't removed the Uzumaki child from the Academy." Danzo said, apparently deciding to get to the point today rather than dance around it with near indecipherable rhetoric and innuendos.

"In order to keep civilian families from pulling their children over frivolous issues, Tobirama-sensei made it damn near impossible to pull a child from the Academy without filling out boatloads of paperwork in triplicate, and damn near impossible to return them to the Academy once they've been pulled." he replied, damning his sensei for unwittingly doing that to him.

"You are the Hokage are you not?" Danzo asked, looking almost disgusted that he hadn't used his power to pull Naruto from the Academy the instant he'd discovered he'd been enrolled.

"Yes, and people will start to think the laws don't mean crap if I start breaking them left and right for my own convenience." he replied, once again going over why he didn't just take control and tell everyone to go to hell regardless of what the law said on the matter when things didn't go his way. "Naruto will have his three chances at Graduation like everybody else who attends the Academy, and his first chance to take the Academy Graduation exam won't be happening until he's six and a half."

Danzo just gave him **that** look in response, that look that said "You're being stupid, and we both know it".

* * *

The class glared at the Instructor as Ko picked Naruto up and carried him out of the room, taking the diaper bag full of Naruto's school supplies amongst other things which had been left with the boy when he'd been dropped off for the day along with him. He didn't know how, but somehow he'd taken on the role of being Naruto's caretaker while he was at the Academy. Fortunately, none of his classmates had attempted to hinder his endeavors despite the fact that they all knew who the toddler he was tending to was and what it contained. Getting punished by their Instructor every time he "left the room without permission" was par for the course however, and it was getting to the point where he and Naruto practically lived in the hallway while they were at the Academy. Fortunately several of his classmates were willing to share their notes and the day's homework with him so he didn't fall too far behind.

A teacher picking on a six, seven, or eight year-old child who can't keep up with the rest of the class is one thing, but the same man picking on a baby for being unable to do the same is another matter entirely, even in the eyes of a bunch of children who knew exactly what that baby was supposed to be. It had been because of what that baby was that the instructor had gotten away with it in the first place, but things had changed as the students who'd only had a nebulous idea of what the Kyuubi's vessel was at that point began to see Uzumaki Naruto for what he actually was, and that was a baby who didn't know what the hell was going on.

Uzumaki Naruto was an eighteen month old toddler who was only just barely able to run around a bit that had been trained to recognize his own name and write a bunch of scribbles that resembled it down on a piece of paper, and the students of the class he'd been placed in recognized that fact. They also recognized the fact that the Uzumaki child had had little to no idea what was going on when he'd been brought to the Academy and placed in the classroom before the start of lessons, as the child frequently disrupted the class when he'd gotten bored and fallen out of his chair until the teacher had gotten the bright idea of tying him to said chair. By the time the first test of the first year had rolled around, every last one of the children had wanted to say something, but had been too afraid to speak up in case the Instructor turned his attention on them and did something horrible to them.

Everyone had been afraid to speak up until Ko had snapped that was...

The day Ko had snapped, it was as if a dam had burst, and all of the indignant cries that had been bitten back for fear of what the Instructor could or would do to them were bitten back no longer. It didn't matter if they got demerits or detention or lines, that was a baby and they had been taught by their families that you never ever picked on a baby because picking on babies was just plain wrong. It was getting to the point where the Instructor was unable to maintain control over his class.

One day, someone would have to give, and odds were that it wouldn't be the students...


	3. Chapter 3

Ko smiled reassuringly at Naruto as he handed the boy the pencil he was supposed to take the second test of the year. He knew that the boy wouldn't get any of the questions right, but it would result in less disturbances if Naruto who was picking up on the anxiety of the other students wasn't anxious himself as it tended to make him cry. The boy who had been tugging on the ropes with which the teacher had bound him to his booster seat which one of the students had donated, having probably nicked it from a restaurant, took the pencil with a babyish smile that lit up his wide blue eyes.

He carefully watched the boy as he waited to turn over his test paper, making sure that Naruto didn't accidentally stab himself with the pencil which was much sharper than the novelty pencil which had been included in the boy's school supplies that hadn't seen much use. Fortunately, the boy whose hand wasn't the right size to hold a writing instrument that wasn't a toddler sized crayon or a pencil that was of approximately the same thickness didn't stab himself during the wait for that day's exam to start, an exam Ko wasn't entirely sure he himself was entirely ready for since he had spent so much of his class time looking after Naruto who really should be at home with a babysitter or something.

When it was time to turn over the test paper, Naruto rather cutely tried to copy the rest of the class, creasing his paper in the process. After that, Naruto started playing with the pencil, at one point connecting the lead to the paper and noticing that it made marks. Laughing happily, the boy started scribbling all over the paper. Some of said scribbles resembled the boy's name.

The next Monday, after the tests had been graded and handed back, Ko was surprised to see that Naruto had gotten one of the questions right completely by accident. The answer to the question having been "Uzumaki". Points had been removed for his lack of detail though.

* * *

Itachi watched the First Year Academy students from his spot over by the older students. Having tested out of the First Year class before he'd even arrived, and being on track to graduate at the end of the year, he was taking classes with children who were a good three years older than him. That difference was nothing compared to the age difference between the average members of the First Year class, and the class' youngest member who was standing next to Hyuuga Ko, trying to imitate the basic warmup stretches.

He wondered how the small Uzumaki child who reminded him of his little brother would fare when his companion eventually left him behind. Hyuuga Ko, despite his somewhat retiring nature, had been another one who had been on the fast track for Early Graduation, though one that wasn't so early as his. That, and it would be a major miracle if the Uzumaki child got past the first year without having to repeat it at least twice, considering his age.

As he watched little Naruto's butt wiggle in the air as he tried to bend down to touch his toes, he smiled as he remembered Sasuke trying to hide under a blanket only for his wiggling diaper clad backside to give him away. As Naruto tried to straighten back up, his over-sized head which made him a bit top-heavy caused him to overbalance and fall. The child gave a startled shriek of surprise when he hit the ground. Rather than getting up right away, the boy sat there and cried like Sasuke would've if he'd fallen over.

"Get up Uzumaki!" the Instructor for the First Year class said, kicking the small child who was still sprawled on the ground.

It had been more of a rough toeing, than a kick, but it was still a kick, and as his parents had told him before, You. Never. Kick. A. Baby. Especially not a baby who was even smaller than Sasuke was right now.

The rest of Naruto's class finally snapped and mobbed the evil baby-kicking Instructor. Without really thinking about it, he grabbed one of the Kunai he was supposed to be practicing throwing and joined the mob. From the looks of things, he wasn't the only member of his class to make the decision.

* * *

The Hokage groaned as he read the report he'd just received. It had taken over two hours to restore order at the Academy, and the First Year Instructor had been sent to the hospital, having nearly been killed by his students, one of whom, quite possibly a Fourth Year student who had abandoned the nearby target practice, had nearly eviscerated the man with a dull kunai.

The thing was, he didn't really feel much sympathy for the man considering the fact that according to eyewitness accounts of the incident, the man had been seen kicking Naruto. the only regret he felt about this situation was the paperwork, and the difficulty that would be posed by finding a last-minute replacement for the man who wouldn't follow in his footsteps.

The Uchiha had recently been clamoring about being given more responsibilities in the running of the village, so maybe...

Smiling, he wrote a missive requesting advice from Fugaku regarding recommendations involving an important position that involved the next generation of shinobi.

* * *

Fugaku sighed as he pulled the Hokage's note off of the top of the pile of paperwork that swamped his desk. A pile that was nearly as large as the one that graced the desk of the Hokage, being a combination of Clan business and Police business which he had to tend to being both Head of the Uchiha Clan and the Chief of Police. There were days he wanted to take a break from it all, but he knew he couldn't because he had been born into the position and it was his burden to bear.

_Important position?_ he thought as he read the missive that had been sent to him. _Well, it isn't as if I would ask anyone else to do what I'm not willing to do..._


End file.
